Mnemonics

"splat", "dont care", "whatever"

-- used when you do not care or want a sensible "largest default"

Used alone

* can be used like you always have, for multiplication* just about anywhere else, is means whatever* within a version number functions as a wildcard* in a switch statement when clause is a synonym for default

As a twigil

* between a sigil and its identifier name denotes a contextualized variable, which is searched for in the nearest dynamic scope (including the processes environment, if not found sooner)

Operators containing this character

*=mutant assignment form of multiplication** and **= can be used like you always have, for exponentiation** just about anywhere else is a multidimensional whatever (see above).*calls all methods if there are duplicate method names[*-1] as an array index not special syntax but is legal use of "whatever" to get at the last element of an array.